[UA] Would you like gas with those fries?

[Timothy Ferguson]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hopt" <hauptkov at home.com>

> Dang. I get 'deja vu' flashes of just the same things (geez, how many
> other people here do?), but I've always wondered what would happen if I
> changed the flow. So far I've only managed to sit/stand/whatever, kind
> of stunned, at realizing I'd seen this before, and then it fades before
> I can react.

Nothing happens, you are free to change the flow.  I discovered this as a
small child.  I vividly recall going to the pantry for an orange slice
biscuit and knowing, because I'd dreamed it, that my mother would catch me.
So, I hid in the spare room while Mum got a glass of water, then I had my
bikkie and went to bed.  Virtually every member of my family doesn't do this
any more.  My cousin predicted her own death (and she was right -  except
about the time frame), so most of them force themselves awake when they are
having one of the dreams.  Since I usually get enough lag between realising
something and it happening, I still have the dreams sometimes, less now than
when I was younger.

> To be honest, I've also been very frightened. I used to wonder if I'd
> tear a hole in probability or cause some godawful cosmic event if I
> didn't follow the script during a deja vu experience; but getting a
> feeling of cosmic dread doesn't sound so bad. Perhaps next time I'll try
> mucking around. :)

The basic view of one branch of physics is this: all of time has already
happened.  You, however, do not know what is going to happen tomorrow
because you can't see four-dimensionally.  That being said, looking from
outside time, every decision you make, indeed every event from the beginning
to the end of the universe, is already set in place.  As such, you lack any
capacity to stuff it up (and this is the way around the Grandfather Paradox,
for those of you playing the home game - time dodges the bullet.)


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